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 Brokeback
Mountain Star Heath Ledger Found Dead
by The Associated Press
Posted: January 22, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET
Updated 5:30 pm ET, 6:00 pm ET, 6:30 pm ET, 10:00 pm ET
(New York City) Heath Ledger,
the talented 28-year-old actor who gravitated toward dark,
brooding roles that defied his leading-man looks, was found
dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, facedown at the foot of
his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.
There was no obvious indication
that the Australian-born Ledger had committed suicide, NYPD
spokesman Paul Browne said.
Ledger had an appointment for a
massage at the SoHo apartment that is believed to be the home
of the "Brokeback Mountain" actor, Browne said. The
massage therapist and a housekeeper found his naked body at
about 3:30 p.m. They tried to revive him, but he was already
dead.
"We are all deeply
saddened and shocked by this accident," Ledger's
publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement Tuesday night.
"This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones
and we are asking the media to please respect the family's
privacy and avoid speculation until the facts are known."
Outside the building on an
upscale street, paparazzi and gawkers gathered, and several
police officers put up barricades to control the crowd of
about 300. Onlookers craned their necks as officers brought
out a black bodybag on a gurney, took it across the sidewalk
and put it into a medical examiner's office van.
As the door opened, bystanders
snapped pictures with camera phones, rolled video and said,
"He's coming out!"
An autopsy was planned for
Wednesday, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen
Borakove said.
While not a marquee movie star,
Ledger was an award-winning actor who chose his roles
carefully rather than cashing in on big-money parts. He was
nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in
"Brokeback Mountain." During filming, he met
Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two
had a daughter, now 2-year-old Matilda, and lived together in
Brooklyn until they split up last year.
It was a shocking and
unforeseen conclusion for one of Hollywood's bright young
stars. Though his leading man looks propelled him to early
stardom in films like "10 Things I Hate About You"
and "A Knight's Tale," his career took a notable
turn toward dramatic and brooding roles with 2001's
"Monster's Ball."
"I had such great hope for
him," said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger's vengeful
father in "The Patriot," in a statement. "He
was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age
is a tragic loss."
In the Australian city of
Perth, where Ledger was born and raised, his father called the
actor's death "tragic, untimely and accidental."
"He was (a) down-to-earth,
generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual,
extremely inspirational to many," Kim Ledger said,
reading from a prepared statement. "Heath has touched so
many people on so many different levels during his short
life."
Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz
in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he became one
of the borough's most famous residents. "Brokeback"
would be his breakthrough role, establishing him as one of his
generation's finest talents and an actor willing to take
risks.
Ledger began to gravitate more
toward independent fare, including Lasse Hallstrom's
"Casanova" and Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers
Grimm," both released in 2005. His 2006 film
"Candy" now seems destined to have an especially
haunting quality: In a particularly realistic performance,
Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along
with his girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish.
But Ledger's most recent
choices were arguably the boldest yet: He costarred in
"I'm Not There," in which he played one of the many
incarnations of Bob Dylan - as did Cate Blanchett, whose
performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday
for best supporting actress.
And in what may be his final
finished performance, Ledger proved that he wouldn't be
intimidated by taking on a character as iconic as Jack
Nicholson's Joker. Ledger's version of the "Batman"
villain, glimpsed in early teaser trailers, made it clear that
his Joker would be more depraved and dark.
Curiosity about Ledger's final
performance will likely stoke further interest in the summer
blockbuster. "Dark Knight" director Christopher
Nolan said this month that Ledger's Joker would be wildly
different from Nicholson's.
"It was a very great
challenge for Heath," Nolan said. "He's extremely
original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very
young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot
of our basic fears and panic."
Ledger told The New York Times
in a November interview that he "stressed out a little
too much" during the Dylan film and had trouble sleeping
while portraying the Joker, whom he called a
"psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with
zero empathy."
"Last week I probably
slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the
newspaper. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was
exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took
two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour, the paper
said.
Ledger was a widely recognized
figure in his Manhattan neighborhood, where he used to shop at
a home and children's store. Michelle Vella, an employee
there, said she had frequently seen Ledger with his daughter -
carrying the toddler on his shoulders, or having ice cream
with her.
"It's so sad. They were
really close," Vella said. "He's a very
down-to-earth guy and an amazing father."
Before settling down with
Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather
Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on
"The Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized version of a
cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.
Ledger was born in 1979 to a
mining engineer and a French teacher and got his first acting
role playing Peter Pan at age 10 in a local theater company.
He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in
Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an
Olympic team in a 1996 television show, "Seat."
After several independent
films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and starred
opposite Julia Stiles in "10 Things I Hate About
You." Offers for other teen flicks soon came his way, but
Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign
on for projects he didn't like.
"It wasn't a hard decision
for me," Ledger told the Associated Press in 2001.
"It was hard for everyone else around me to understand.
Agents were like, `You're crazy,' my parents were like, 'Come
on, you have to eat.'"
©365Gay.com 2008
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